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It’s a lot less structured than usual, but Daryl rambles on about the CG Space Pirate Captain Harlock film as well as Bayonetta: Bloody Fate. At no point does he say what either are about.
Introduction (0:00 – 35:17)
We actually managed to get through more than one email for a change. How do you deal with being the person who doesn’t care for the popular currently airing series everyone’s talking about? Who the Hell are these Section23 English dubs for? What are our hopes for the upcoming Legend of the Galactic Heroes series? And what’s the deal with that new Thief game, anyway? Note: any attempt to leave feedback on or start discussion about wacky Internet pirate money will be deleted.
Review Talk About At Length: Space Pirate Captain Harlock (2013) (35:17 – 43:26)
It’s not really a “review” since that would imply actual substance, but Daryl touches a bit on Shinji Aramaki’s latest foray into the realm of 3D CG anime. Short version: everything you heard everybody say about it is correct, all at once. To get an inkling of an idea of what Captain Harlock is actually about, you probably want to listen to Show 34 rather than this.
Review: Bayonetta: Bloody Fate (43:26 – 1:16:08)
This is allegedly a “review” since we certainly talked about SOMETHING regarding this new feature-length animated motion picture from…Studio Gonzo. At 90 minutes long, it’s the approximate equivalent to 3 TV episodes in length: the typical threshold after which Gonzo productions nosedive in quality. Within that 90 minutes, it adapts the storyline of the original Bayonetta videogame in its relative entirety. Videogame anime AND it’s by Studio Gonzo? Tread carefully.
- You can still actually buy this game new, and since it sold fairly well used copies aren’t hard to come by. Due to noticeable framerate/performance as well as graphical differences, we strongly recommend the Xbox 360 version over the Playstation 3 one.
- There’s only one video playthrough the AWO recommends, and that’s this one courtesy of Australian goon-ette Yoshesque. (We recommend the “less talky” version because that guy she’s with is NO BUYS. She does all the non-“normal playthrough” videos without him.) In addition to playing through the game to full completion, she’s also done extensive research on all of the various designs and references contained throughout. Hell, we’ve SEEN Red Photon Zillion and didn’t catch that those were supposed to be the ray guns from that anime!
- The FuturePress hardcover guide Daryl bought (which they binded UPSIDE DOWN) is long out of print, but you can still easily get Udon’s English editions of The Eyes of Bayonetta artbook. Marvel at all the unused artwork intended for use by American publications that got rejected for being too provocative! Oh, it’s also really informative and comes with a DVD.
- The Internet seems 100% convinced that this film was dubbed into English such that the dub track was only included on the Japanese limited edition release, but we’re calling SHENANIGANS. Everyone cites this page as their source for that, but we’re pretty sure they’re all misreading it. Yes, it does say that the deluxe edition comes with the “dubbing script” but that simply means the JAPANESE script.
I really don’t get why Urobuchi is so beloved by a lot of anime fans. From what I’ve personally seen, Madoka “the Dokes” Magica is the one show where everything more or less worked out perfectly in terms of writing. I can’t speak about what he’s done before that, but since the Dokes, everything Urobuchi has had a hand in the script of has devolved to bashing the audience in the face with a message and making the plot bend over backwards to support that message, even if it means making characters insanely stupid. And even worse is the fact that Urobuchi has a fan base that seems similar to VN fans who will respond to criticisms by saying you didn’t get the point, even if you say you understand the point and explain what your problem with the work is.
As for anime writers who deserve more love, Dai Sato should get some credit for a Japanese writer who consumes entertainment from outside of Japan in an era where it seems like Japanese writers are all ripping each other off and writing some pretty accessible stuff that’s enjoyable even to non-anime fans. Yusuke Kuroda (the Gundam 00, Gunpla Builders, and Build Fighters guy) is also pretty good when he’s not forced into redoing the same damn plots and tropes by a production committee.
As for Section23 dubs, I’ve heard so many weird theories about them that I don’t know what’s true, but from what I’ve heard, non-US markets is probably the only target for those things besides people who impulse buy the shows in a store or something. They apparently have near zero ties to Adult Swim for whatever reason, so US airings are out of the picture. But what’s odd is that there are English dubbing companies out in Asia that are dubbing things like Gundam AGE and Build Fighters, so I have no idea how Section23 would factor into the Asian market besides shoveling tons of stuff out to tons of channels. What’s sad is that those channels would probably be better off getting shows fandubbed than Section23 dubbed, because the fandubs generally have better casting and direction.
You guys are misremembering my views on the 009 CG movie. I was excited to get it, I was excited that it was subtitled, some parts of it were exciting to watch, but after I finished it I stopped being excited. The only comment I recall making afterward was, “I wish it had an ending.” If you can find evidence to the contrary, please share it with me.
Re: the Harlock movie, having now seen it on the big screen and on blu-ray, I can tell you that the big screen experience was much better. A lot of the presentation is in the scope, and you REALLY get that in a theater. It is also possible that I am more forgiving than most when it comes to CG, because I’ve worked in that medium quite a bit and I understand how limiting it is. When someone finds ways to cheat those limits that I haven’t thought of yet, it impresses me. I still haven’t seen it subbed, so I can’t comment on the story. Is there a fan sub or something floating around that I haven’t heard about?
PS: Gerald, I just want to be friends.
I recall that Daryl also had a positive initial impression of the 009 CG movie. I remember this because I watched the movie a few days after he mentioned it in the ANNCast. If you listen to the Clash of the Supernerds from 09:30 until 10:55 http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/anncast/2013-06-21, you can see he was also excited that he had watched it.
The section that you’ve chosen to highlight is, of course, why during our review we did I was sure to mention that for me, it was a slightly delayed realization due to promising previews and positive reactions going into it that I wanted to believe it was pretty good. It was a time-compressed version of the same phenomenon that was how everyone reacted to The Phantom Menace upon release.
Ok what is with the weird feedback noise at times?
There were multiple points during which Gerald’s audio was lost on his end, forcing me to reconstruct the conversation using backup audio as recorded off of Skype. Since the feedback hum was only present during portions where there was speaking, I could not do any noise removal or high pass filter that would remove just the noise without distorting the audio in the process.
I blame his affinity for still using that USB headset rather than the stand mic, since the latter requires keeping your head and body much more still throughout the recording.
Regarding the Section23 dubs: there’s the Anime Network. Yes, it’s still around. It’s just on demand now. I don’t care about dubs in modern DVD/BD releases anyway.
I thought this new episode was an April Fool’s joke dropped way too early.
Since you mentioned Appleseed, I’d like to see a review of the 1988 OVA version you guys mentioned with the dub lines such as: “This really gets on my tits!”
Gerald is right that well into the early 90s, Kimagure Orange Road was an important show among U.S. anime fans. I don’t think the show necessarily changed anime or anime fans; mecha, violence, and action were still dominant even during KOR’s popularity. What I think KOR demonstrated, however, is that there was also a desire for what today is a much more common genre–romantic comedies that are set more or less in the real world.
Yes, Kyousuke was an esper, but the show wasn’t *about* his powers, the way, say, Locke or AKIRA are (Nobody has been an “esper” since the 1980s–whatever happened to all the psychokinetic people? I think they all became New Agers and mellowed out, and stopped with that “No! Boom” stuff). Fans had always shipped love pairings in things like mecha shows, but again, those series weren’t *about* romance. Urusei Yatsura was far too anarchic, energetic, and cynical to fill the niche KOR did–it was a romance third, and a comedy first and second.
Kimagure Orange Road may not necessarily seem all that exceptional in 2014, but it could feel vivacious and contemporary in its day; we can’t forget its character designs were by Akemi Takada, who stood at the summit among 80s anime talent (Patlabor has always been respected, but I’m intrigued by the revival of interest in Creamy Mami. In my experience, it was rare for U.S. fans to be into magical girl shows during the actual 1980s) and its music was by Shiro Sagisu–at early U.S. anime cons, fans made a beeline for the Son May (SM) grey-market CD soundtracks from the series.
Oh Sonmay, will you ever give up? 😛
[For reference: those guys made bootleg CDs uh, 20 years ago. The current bootleggers are not still using that label. Also, supplying a fake email address is what sent this to moderation. –Daryl]
I think I’ve heard some people over the years comment that listening to AWO discuss an anime can be as good or better than seeing the anime itself. That feeling very much applies to me when it comes to your discussion of video games, even if you don’t review them in a formal sense.
Because I haven’t really played video games since the Reagan administration, 90% of what I know about them, I learn by listening to the three of you. This is an awesome power that you could easily abuse, but I know you won’t, since if anime has taught me anything about Americans, it is that they possess a strong sense of justice. This means I only have to watch out for whatever Gerald says.
By the way, I liked Clarissa’s imitation of me on the issue of pronouncing “thyme.”
I just finished the Bayonetta game (as in a week ago), and it didn’t seem as fair as you say it is. The game itself was brilliant, but there were too many “press X to not die” situations. Of course, you could continue immediately, so it didn’t end your game, but it basically guaranteed that in most levels you’d use enough continues to ruin your score unless you memorized the insta-kill screens in advance.
Your comments about the narrator sucking at the start of Bayonetta are what I think of the narrator in the recent Hunter X Hunter series. As they approach the end of the Chimera Ant arc it seems like a lot of the episodes consist of the narrator explaining what the characters are thinking and doing.
As for Jojo’s, was there a fan translation or something before the official release of the OAV? The OAV not only put the episodes in chronological order rather than production order, but it also had voiced summaries of Jojo’s arcs 1 and 2 so you’d know this wasn’t the start of the series.
The QTEs in Bayonetta certainly tripped me up, but it does fit in with what I said on the show: you don’t lose any progress (it restarts back at that same instant) or any items etc. The only penalty is to a numerical score, which as I said is something many people these days aren’t concerned about anyway since you can’t really get high scores until after you’ve played through the game once to learn how it all works.
The original Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure OAVs were indeed “fansubbed” in the VHS days, though it’d be more accurate to say that the way most people saw them would’ve been via bootleg VHS subs masquerading as fansubs (your “Black Adder/Absolutely Fabulous pseudonym” types of bootlegger). All of that was done in the early 1990s, several years before even the first of the prequel OAVs for Stardust Crusaders came out. Those types of “fansubs” were also the only way to see the prequel OAVs for years, until the official DVDs started to trickle out. I don’t think those voiced summaries you speak of were added until the early to mid 2000s, roughly a decade or so later.
Dear Mr Surat and the AWO crew,
If you didn’t make an anime podcast, what’s the next thing you could’ve talked about? Video Games? Wrestling?
It definitely wouldn’t be about wrestling since nobody else has any interest in professional wrestling aside from myself. A movie podcast wouldn’t be out of the question, but we’d need to cover them from a certain aspect or focus on a particular genre. I’m the only person who has any significant interest in Asian live-action cinema (mostly older stuff), Westerns, gangster movies, and other “dad” genres. I don’t watch horror movies at all, and those are a significant part of Clarissa’s diet.
Television? Gerald and Clarissa watch way more than I do, and so I wouldn’t have much to say. They also tend to watch the same anime, which I may not necessarily (and vice versa). However, they have significantly less desire to talk about what they saw, and exponentially less desire to edit recordings of them talking about what they saw. That is why the last two episodes of this podcast were reviews by me and were recorded in March when it is now May.
Videogames would be the most likely bet since we all play videogames, but who doesn’t at this point? There are a ton of videogame podcasts, livestreams, and Youtube channels (Gerald’s been doing Youtube videos of co-op games for the last few months), so the challenge is doing something different than what’s already out there. There are only so many games we each know a lot about, and I don’t think they overlap significantly to make for an interesting conversation. There is a bit more overlap in our American comics reading, but there are plenty of good comics podcasts and I don’t think I could do better.
Does this mean you’re through with podcasting, Mr. Surat? Because I personally enjoyed those last two episodes. It’s hard to schedule and all that, so why not pursue a solo career?
What? No, it doesn’t mean I’m done with podcasting. It just means I’m waiting for people to be ready to record, same as always. In the meantime, I’ve got the occasional guest spots on other shows. I’m recording two more over the next few days.
Solo podcasts in general aren’t as interesting. Think of all the popular podcasts that start off with the host talking for 5 to 10 minutes on their own before they bring out the guest. Don’t you often skip past that part?
Honestly, if it were you I’d listen all day…..
I skip the part with the guest much more often, especially if I am not interested in the interview.
If Clarissa is unavailable, why not have more episodes with just Gerald? Solo episodes can be GREAT! Maybe you could answer a few emails, get a regular guest like Zac Bertschy or someone to come on.
The world needs more great anime podcasts… since everything else withered and died!